


Sirius

by starstag



Series: Out of an Empty Sky [1]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Gen, between ep5 and ep6, let fitzjames and goodsir be nature nerds, look I just want to write about birds, this is tender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 08:59:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19826830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starstag/pseuds/starstag
Summary: Fitzjames contemplates his mortality, Goodsir attempts to comfort him. They both see a bird and it means A Lot.





	Sirius

Cold hands, cold feet, cold face: within seconds of stepping up onto the deck, James Fitzjames was cold all over. The air was clear and crisp and utterly biting.

God knows what brought him out on deck before the dog watch, into the silent cold. Some semblance of peace, no doubt. The deck looked empty from his vantage point, and with the men on watch out of sight, he could imagine the ship was indeed abandoned, the ghostly creaking of the ropes the only sound to accompany his thoughts.

The thought of abandonment brought a childlike fear and he shuddered, glancing over his shoulder as if some shadowy monster could be stalking him. There could be, he reminded himself, and that was possibly the least comforting thought of all.

He screwed up his face against the cold. His greatcoat and hat did little against the bitterness of the wind, and the layers of clothing only left him feeling thick and heavy. The uniform no longer held the thrill of importance, only a dreary sense of repetition. Under the layers of wool and cotton, he was covered in a cold sweat. The occasional rush of frosty wind across his neck and cheeks made him shiver, and the combined sensations only made him feel tired and dirty. He found that he had no motivation to do anything about it, and only stood in the center of the deck, craning his head upward. In the cold, cloudless night he could see all the way to the top of the masts. They were eerily still and bare: quiet monuments to their entrapment in the ice.

With a shake of his head, he turned his gaze from the masts and looked straight ahead. He bit his tongue, willing his breath to slow and even out. It came in little bursts as he forced his eyes to focus.

It was a clear, the sky vast and cloudless, adorned with splatters of thousands of silver stars and a great crescent moon, too large and bright to seem completely real. The expanse of ice, spotted with shadows and patches of shimmering glare, shone dully under the stars’ wan light. It spread in every direction, surrounding the ship, buckled like mountains and piled in vast tablets and broken columns, like a fallen temple. He felt all the world like a statue, cracked and marred and so horribly broken. By the moonlight, the world stretched for leagues around him, leaving him feeling shockingly small and horribly insignificant.

He shuddered, swallowed hard. A light gust of wind brushed back his hair and he lifted his head again, squinting into it. It carried the cold and vaguely metallic scent of ice. The chilly air was doing nothing to clear his head, nor was the isolation. Nothing was working. He bit the inside of his cheek, gnawing on it until it was raw. That didn’t work either.

He’d been abject since Sir John’s death. Utterly abject, more like a confused and lost child than anything else. He hated the feeling, it left him feeling like he’d failed himself, or at least some perfected facade that only held a vague resemblance to who he was beneath.  
He was alone, so alone, and more and more he found himself missing Francis, of all people. Once, he’d hoped to make the man admire him, make him smile or laugh or at least something more than his usual sneering frown. Now even that was not a possibility.  
He looked out across the ice, imagining how quiet it must be beneath. Dark, as well. Sometimes, he found himself half wishing he could lock himself away, same as Francis, but where would that get him?

In frustration, he exhaled sharply, let his eyes cross and focus on his breath condensing in the cold air. It hung, ghostlike, and dissipated into wisps in front of his face. His life, leaving him. It only served to remind him how tired he was, how droplets of blood beaded at his hairline like tiny jewels. If he got thinking about that, if he really concentrated, he could feel the weakness dragging at his bones, the splitting in his skin, like thread unspooling, the slow deterioration of his once-strong body.

“Commander, is anything amiss?” The gentle voice startled him, but when he turned it was only Goodsir’s kindly face peering back at him.

“No, no.” He said automatically. “Why?”

“Well.” He smiled that gentle smile, and James felt part of his gleaming armor shear away. “I just don’t expect you to be brooding on deck, at this hour.”  
"It’s quiet,” he said, staring resolutely at the ice. A non- answer.

Goodsir quietly moved closer. “Yes, it is.” He didn’t look over the bulwarks, and remained looking up at James with a soft curiosity. “You came here to be alone?”

Something like that. The lie came too easily, despite the pain. He was flaking away, there were cracks in his skin, large enough Goodsir should have been able to see.

“Would you like me to leave you, then?”

No, no. He didn’t. He was splitting down the middle- the damn anatomist should have been able to tell.“I....”

Goodsir only nodded and inched closer. “You’re right about the silence. And the dark. Easy to get lost in one’s thoughts.”

“Yes.” It came out choked, and he feigned a cough, too fake even for him.

“What’s troubling you, Commander?”

There it was, at last. A lifeline, just before he shattered, splintering into pieces across the deck, fragile as a crystal star.

“In truth.” He began, then paused for too long. Goodair waited, dark eyes glittering in the starlight. “In truth, I recently noticed something amiss.” The man nodded, urging him gently to continue.

He motioned to his head. “Blood, on my scalp-” he meant to say more, the found he couldn’t and at last Goodsir answered.

“Anything else?”

“Not- not yet. But I know what it is, you don’t need to say.”

He nodded again, glanced away out over the ice. A creak broke the silence, and they stood quietly for a moment.

“These are the early sign-”  
“Don’t say it.” He said roughly. “I know they are, but they’ll only get worse from here on out. The juice has gone bad, there’s no fresh meat…” His words petered off along with his thoughts, and for a moment he could only shiver in the cold.  
Goodsir was so close he could feel the warmth rolling off his body. He didn’t speak, just stood there gazing out at the frozen sea. He followed his gaze and breathed deep.

Unlike his thoughts, the ice was still, so still and silent, save for the imperceptible shifting and groaning which he knew was occurring under his feet. Against the dark backdrop of the sky, his eyes detected movement and for a wild moment, his mind jumped to the creature, the Tuunbaq. But the Tuunbaq could not fly, and neither, he thought with some chagrin, could he.

To fly... it seemed all the world synonymous with freedom in that moment. The figure was so far off, so high, so small in the expanse of the night. He squinted at it and the creature gained shape, floating amongst the dark, bobbing between the distant stars. A bird. He leaned forward onto his embows, tilted his face up into the silver light of stars and moon and reflection of ice and stared.

The bird, still distant, had wide white wings which it did not flap. Instead, it tilted to and fro, gliding in fast loops over the pack, moving with almost careless ease on the barest whisper of wind. It was small and angular, all sharp points and stark edges, and it wheeled closer and closer as he watched on long tapered wings. Presently, Goodsir noticed the bird as well, and with a soft gasp he leaned intently over the rail, his eyes wide with wonder.

It turned suddenly with a flick of its delicate forked tail, and the moon struck it just right. In the blink of an eye, its feathers were turned pearlescent in the light. In the vastness of the indigo expanse shining ice and opaque sky, it looked far too small. Fragile, even. Out of place, so much like the ships.

“What’s that bird, Mr. Goodsir?” He asked quietly.

He squinted, leaned out over the bulwarks and for a moment he looked lost in thought, as if all other troubles had been forgotten.

“A pictarnie, I believe,” he said, stepping back. “An Arctic Tern.”

James cleared his throat and nodded. “I haven’t seen many like that, or any birds at all.”

He exhaled sharply and shifted his hands in his pockets, shuffling his feet. “No, they don’t winter here. Not much does.”

They watched it for a moment, each in their own thoughts, until Goodsir spoke again. “They are remarkable birds.” He said softly, gaze glued to the small, graceful shape swinging low over the horizon. “They rarely ever touch the ground.”

“Really?” He asked, only half listening.

He nodded, and pointed out at the bird. “They remain on the wing for months on end, and only come to land to lay their eggs. Have you seen them hunting?”

He shook his head and murmured a ‘no’, lulled to peace by the sound of Goodsir’s voice.

Goodsir’s eyes remained glued to the distant tern, but he lifted mittened hands to demonstrate with gestures as he explained.

“They swoop over the ocean’s surface, over and over, like so- and when their quarry is spotted, they rise very high in the air and fold their wings up and fall like a spear into the ocean.”

James shifted to look at him, his interest no longer feigned. “Like small gannets, hm?”

“Yes. Yes, exactly. You’ve likely seen them before, Commander. These, or other terns.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Seeing them and watching them as you do is very different, Mr. Goodsir.”

They lapses into silence, watching its vague, dark outline shift back and forth across the velvet drape of the sky.

“Do you suppose it’s lost?” James glanced at Goodsir, who was still staring at the bird, quiet wonder shining on every feature of his face. His nose had gone red and runny, but his eyes were bright and there was a small smile on his lips. “Lost like us?”

Goodsir shrugged. “They’re true navigators, they are good at finding their way. This must be a young one, left behind.”

Left behind. Sorrow sprang in his heart, a strange empathy for the nameless creature, too far off to even fully make out its shape. “Think he’ll find his fellows?”

He nodded. “They’ll come back in the spring. He won’t be alone for long.”

There was a tense silence that filled, filled with an unspoken question. What about us?

James shifted to his other foot and the ice beneath the ship cracked again. “You know,” he began again, “I’m glad he’s here.”

“Why’s that?” Goodsir turned away from the rail and looked up at him.

“Because we get to see him.”

“Hmm.” He glanced back contemplatively. “The land is undoubtedly beautiful here, as are the creatures.”

They lapsed into silence again, watching the bird rise and fall in its wide, soaring loops. It never jerked, never faltered, and never made a sound. Finishing one pass, it began straight out over the ice to the east of the Erebus. It didn’t turn again. As James watched, it grew smaller and smaller, first a narrow white vee, then merely a smudge, and then nothing. In just a few seconds, it disappeared, lost in the black expanse of the Wrctic night. A cloud passed over the moon, and the silver light it cast abruptly died.

He sighed, and Goodsir did too.

“I doubt we’ll see it again.” He said. James murmured his agreement and stepped back from the rail. Somehow, it was colder than before. He looked at his surroundings with new eyes, as if waking from a dream. How lost in thought had he been, and how much time had passed?

Goodsir seemed similarly put out, and James checked his pocket watch. A mere five minutes. The bird, the moonlight on the ice...it had seemed to last forever.

He coughed delicately. “Fascinating. I didn’t expect to see that tonight.”

“Likewise.” Goodsir nodded, seeming to choose his words carefully. “Most... refreshing.”<

The cold was biting at his cheeks, worming its way under his collar and cuffs, and James rubbed his hands together as he stomped across the deck. Goodsir was slow to follow, giving one long glance skyward before turning to shuffle after James.

“Where are you off to?”

The man on watch, some ways away in the dark, sneezed. James smiled back at Goodsir through the expanse of cold air between them some 15 feet wide.

“I’m going to the Terror, Mr. Goodsir. It’s a cold night, and I don’t think anybody should be alone.”


End file.
